Archive of Our Own ^beta

MONACO

“Whoa,” Max says. He takes a sip of his Red Bull and asks, “What’s going on over there?”

Reporters, pundits, photographers, and, from the looks of it, multiple film crews—Sky, F1TV, and even Netflix—are all crowded around the Ferrari hospitality.

He and Checo are walking back from the fan zone. An hour ago, it hadn’t been anything like this.

Checo hums and puts his hands in his pockets, stopping next to Max. Casually, he says, “Everyone must have found out about Charles.”

Max blinks. Swallows. Freezes. “Found out what about Charles?”

Checo turns and looks at him like grown a second head. “He texted in the WhatsApp this morning. Did you not see?”

Shaking his head, Max asks, “What’s happened to Charles? Did he, like—retire? Move teams?” Max can’t think of any other reason why there would be this much activity at Ferrari, on Thursday morning. He’s reminded of when Seb left Ferrari three years ago; when Daniel left Red Bull five years ago.

Absurdly, Checo laughs. “No, nothing like that.” He purses his lips, like he wants to say something, but is choosing not to. “Maybe you should go in and see.”

Max frowns, crossing his arms over his chest, Red Bull still in hand. “See what?”

Smiling, Checo taps Max on his arm and says, “I think you will like it. Come on, they will probably let us through.”

Max huffs a little, but he is curious. Checo is acting rather ominously. It must be something good, so he entertains the idea.

To Max’s surprise, everyone does let the two of them through, the photographers and reporters backing up. As they wait for a path to clear up, Max sips from his Red Bull again. At last, the red sea parts; at the other end of the ocean, past bodies and bodies, is Charles seated just outside the motorhome, a million phones placed on the table before him.

At first glance, he looks completely normal. Still wearing a Ferrari cap. Ferrari polo as well. It’s nothing out of the ordinary.

It isn’t until Charles meets Max’s eyes that Max finally notices what’s different.

The world seems to stop, for a moment. His heart does too.

“Oh,” Max says, and he doesn’t realize that he’s dropped his Red Bull until he feels the liquid soak into his sneakers and socks.

Faintly, Max recognizes that all the cameras are now pointed at him.

Still, he cannot exactly take his eyes off what’s poking out from Charles’ lower back and curling around his bicep: a fluffy light brown tail. A cat’s tail.

Things like these happen every now and then.

A few years ago, Lewis got hit with a truth spell. A few years before that, there was the whole issue of Nico Rosberg and Britney Spears switching bodies during a race weekend—if only for a couple of hours. And a few years before that, Michael Schumacher, for a few days, became Michaela Schumacher. And so on.

At the end of the day, It happens rarely enough that none of them ever have to actively worry about it, but it happens often enough that when it does happen, it’s not an immediate nor life-altering concern. It’s all little magic, small curses passed on through physical gifts, harmless charms.

In all the years that Max has been in F1, however, he doesn’t think any driver has been afflicted with a spell that gives them animal features.

Well. There’s a first time for everything.

It doesn’t seem to affect Charles’ driving at all.

He qualifies third in Monaco, which Max finds out once he climbs out of his cockpit, walking down parc fermé.

And Charles is—

Taking off his helmet.

And—

It looks like he has cat ears also, to match the tail.

And—

Distracted, Max trips over his own feet; it’s his race car driver reflexes that have him not face-planting into the fucking ground.

Great. Fucking great.

Luckily, Loic Duval doesn’t comment on the tripping, focusing on Max’s quali lap. And it was a fantastic quali lap, if Max will say so himself, but he doubts that many people will be talking about the quali lap after today.

They go to take photos.

Max keeps a far distance from Charles. Walking behind him. Though he put his cap on, Max can see the faint outline of his tail through his white overalls. Max feels a little dizzy, flushed, overheated.

Dear fucking god.

He puts his arm around Fernando’s waist as usual, but keeps his other arm limp by his side as they take the photo, hand flexing on his thigh.

He doesn’t exactly know what the etiquette is when the other driver has a tail.

Once he’s back in his hotel room, he finally allows himself the time to respond to his texts of the day.

From his sister: a tweet with three embedded videos. One, of him dropping his Red Bull can when he saw Charles’ tail for the first time. Second, of him tripping in parc fermé. Third, of the photo-taking after qualifying.

Congratulations, she says. You’ve gone viral.

The tweet has almost fifty thousand likes.

Max can only hope the ears and the tail are gone by Spain.

BARCELONA

The ears and the tail aren’t gone by Spain.

Charles rocks up to the paddock in baggy jeans and his Ferrari polo. His chestnut brown tail peeks out from under his shirt, wiggling behind him. Furthermore, he seems to have forgone wearing a hat entirely.

Max keeps his head down. Crane hadn’t let him hear the end of it on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, Charles is grouped into the first Thursday presser. So is Max.

He manages to secure the furthest seat from Charles, thumbing nervously at his Red Bull can, avoiding eye contact with everyone in the room. They start with him. The questions they have for him are predictable, drab and dull. About his championship lead, about Monaco, about the track layout. The usual.

Thank god, he thinks.

They go to Nico, then Guanyu, then George, and then finally—

“So, Charles, let's come to you now,” the interviewer says, and out of the corner of Max’s eye, there is small movement. From the top of Charles’ head. Max takes a deep breath.

“Before we talk Formula One, we should address the elephant in the room. Or, the cat?”

Laughter, from Charles and most of the room.

“Yes, I think that would be a good place to start,” Charles says, giggling. He starts to explain how he’d gotten a bracelet from a fan in Miami. He put it on after the race, wore it on his flight back to Europe, and slept in it, believing it to be a harmless good luck charm. The next morning, he woke up with cat ears and a tail. He’s already seen a specialist, and they said it should go away in a few weeks. That it has changed nothing. Nothing that matters.

“It does not bother me, but it can get very annoying. The tail, it is always moving around, so I have to tape it down before the race. And the ears,” he says with a shrug, toying with one absently, “I cannot actually hear from them, and it is hard to wear a hat over them, since they are always wiggling, and I cannot help it. But it’s like this, and they fit fine in my helmet, so.”

“I think they are cute,” Guanyu says, almost cooing.

Snickering, George speaks up, “I reckon Max does too.”

Max stares at the microphone in his lap, face hot as the whole floor snickers. Fucking George Russell.

“Max?” Nico asks, nudging Max in the side when he doesn’t speak up.

Clearing his throat, Max brings his microphone to his mouth, avoiding all the eyes on him. “What?”

“Charles,” Nico clarifies, like that wasn’t clear enough. “Don’t you think he’s cute like this?”

“Um,” Max says, throat dry, mouth cottony.

“You seemed a bit flustered last time out in Monaco,” Nico points out.

“Oh,” Max says. Very stupidly, he blurts out the first thing on his mind, “I of course have cats at home. Two bengals.”

No one says anything.

“Cats are my favorite animals,” Max tacks on, for some fucking reason, hurriedly taking a sip of his Red Bull when the room remains pindrop silent.

Max counts to five. It’s still silent.

“So,” Guanyu finally says, and Max lets out a long breath, “you must like to see Charles like this?”

“I, uh…” Max swallows again. Traitorously, his eyes drift over to the other side of the couch, to Charles. Charles, who is looking at him with wide, expectant eyes, head tilted to the side, kitty ears perked up. Alert.

“He’s…” Max says, voice cracking, “fine? I guess?”

Charles’ face is unreadable.

However, his cat ears flatten, and his tail curls behind his back.

Fuck, Max thinks. He knows exactly what that means.

SPIELBERG

Austria is good. Spielberg is good. The Red Bull Ring is always good.

It’s been three weekends. Max is starting to get used to it, seeing Charles with kitty ears and a tail. He still gets ridiculed endlessly—by his friends, by other drivers, by the media—but he’s still winning, so it isn’t that bad, isn’t that hard to get his mind off of it when he’s in the car.

Outside the car it’s fine when Charles isn’t in his vicinity. And it’s not like Charles is in his vicinity a lot. They haven’t been grouped in any of the same pressers since Spain, and during the driver parades, Max keeps his distance.

Max just has to keep his head down until Charles goes back to normal, which should be any day now, if the specialist Charles went to had any idea what they were talking about.

And then, Thursday morning comes.

Max slept through his alarm, having landed in Austria late last night. So he hurries to the hotel elevator with his backpack, texting his team that he’ll arrive about thirty minutes later than scheduled. It’s only media day, but marketing has been on his ass lately, so he spams the close door button, and sighs in relief when it closes safely.

Down, down he goes.

He only goes down one floor by the time the doors slide open again.

Oh, he thinks. Great.

Charles’ ears—the cat ones—twitch when they lock eyes, and so does his nose. His tail is stick-straight and puffed up behind him as he slowly enters the elevator with a sharp frown. He presses the garage button, even though it’s already lit up, then settles into a corner of the elevator.

The walls are mirrors. Max can see each movement of his tail, lashing behind himself.

Twenty-two floors to go. Max stares at his shoes.

Silence.

Until the elevator screeches to a loud, clunking, grating halt.

With a gasp, Max quickly grabs the handrail behind himself to steady himself, his heart rocketing in his chest, knees locking; Charles has similar reflexes, yelping. His tail drops below his back.

They’re only on floor sixteen.

While Max is useless, frozen, and wallowing in misfortune in the corner of the elevator, Charles stomps over to the buttons, huffing as he presses the emergency button and explains the situation to security. They apologize profusely, and tell them that help will be coming immediately.

Max fishes his phone from his front pocket and tries to explain the situation to his team, only to realize that there isn’t service in the elevator. On the other side of the elevator, it seems Charles goes through the same series of events, sighing and shoving his phone into his back pocket, frustrated.

Furthermore, immediately is not immediately.

Periodically, Max checks his phone. Refreshes his email. Goes on Safari to see if he can get service. Nothing.

Charles presses the emergency button again; the front desk explains that since they’re stuck between floors, a technician is trying, on their end, to fix the electronic components.

After that, twelve minutes pass in complete silence in this too-hot too-small elevator. Max is starting to feel claustrophobic.

He stares up at the ceiling until the fluorescent lights start to hurt his eyes.

At least until Charles sighs, his arms wrapped over his chest, hip cocked, and says, “I guess we will talk about it now.”

Heart arresting, Max blurts out, “What?”

It’s the first time he’s spoken to Charles and Charles has spoken to him since before Monaco. Since the whole cat ordeal.

“Max,” Charles warns, leveling him with a glare, mouth pursed furiously. The aggression only makes him look cuter. The ears don’t help. “Do you have that much of a problem?”

Max chews on the inside of his cheek. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Deny deny deny.

“I am not going to bite you, or anything, just because I am like this,” Charles says, taking a step forward.

“I know that,” Max replies, internally cursing the hotel for having a shitty elevator and an even shittier repair team, it seems. He presses his back to the wall, the handrail digging into his back.

“Then why—” Charles huffs out, frustrated. His brows are knitted together, his mouth doing that thing it does when he’s upset after qualifying, when he doesn’t get pole, when he’s upset after a race, when he doesn’t win. Max knows what that looks like. With pride, he’s seen it more than anyone. “Then why have you been so weird with me, since Monaco?”

Mouth dry, Max swallows. He is sweating. It is summer in Spielberg, and this lift is not at all ventilated. His voice comes out with great effort, hoarse and defeated, “I have not.”

Max has. He really, really has. He has made efforts not to be around Charles these past couple weekends. And maybe he has gone a little overboard, turning around and walking in the other direction when he sees Charles coming, asking his press team to submit a request not to put him and Charles in the same press conferences, purely out of fear he’ll embarrass himself and go viral once again.

“It is like you are disgusted,” Charles huffs out, taking another step forward. Closing the distance. There is only a half-step away between his body and Charles’ body.

“I am not,” Max says, hands closing around the handrail behind him, because it is the truth. He really, really is not. Disgusted is the last thing he is.

It has been so long since he’s talked to Charles. Since he has debriefed with him; one of his favorite post-race activities. Max hasn’t realized until now, just how much he’s missed it.

Charles’ eyes bore into his—focused, like a laser. He tips his head to the side, mouth curled, assessing.

The proximity makes it hard, but Max tries even harder, not to stare at the beautiful curve of Charles’ Cupid’s bow, how his facial hair curls around the already feline shape of his mouth. He tries so, so hard.

Quietly, like it is not just the two of them in this lift, Charles asks, his pupils dilated but sharp, curious, indulging Max in faith that maybe he should not give, “Then why?”

Because it’s you, Max thinks helplessly, and I have been weird about you since we were kids in go-karts, since we were fourteen and we hated each other almost as much as we wanted to win so I pushed you off the track and you pushed me into a puddle. Because it’s you, and I know we haven’t exactly seen eye to eye in any of the moments that have mattered, but in the moments that have mattered we have known each other, seen each other in ways that are more intimate than anything I have ever experienced: on the track, you in my mirrors, and I in yours, wheel-to-wheel and closer than I have ever been to anyone in my whole life. Because it’s you, and I have wanted you for a long, long time, and I am not sure if you have wanted me in the same way that I want you.

And because this specific kink awakening isn’t exactly a thing to have pride in.

“Sorry,” Max says, instead of any of the things he really wants to say.

Charles pouts. An apology isn’t what he wanted, but it is all that Max could give. The truth is probably too much.

“Is it that weird?” Charles asks, his tail curling around his stomach. Insecure.

“It’s a little weird,” Max confesses, feeling like an idiot when Charles’ ears turn back. I am a lot weirder than anything you are. So, he thinks, but does not have the courage to say.

In reality, weirder things have happened in the time that Max has been in the sport. Lando got hit with a weird charm that had him speaking in an American Southern accent for a month. Yuki could speak fluent French for a week. Pierre turned blue.

“Yeah, well,” Charles mutters, looking at his feet, “I want them gone too.”

I don’t, Max thinks, and panickedly thinks of a better way to rephrase it.

“It suits you,” he says, voice cracking like it hasn’t done since he was eighteen. And last month.

Charles frowns, clearly thinking Max disingenuous. Max can’t blame him. “You did not think so in Spain, during the press conference.”

I did, Max thinks, and that’s half of the problem.

Shyly, Charles mumbles, “I thought you liked cats.”

I do, Max thinks, and that’s the other half of the problem.

Max takes a deep breath. If he can’t say any of the things he really wants to say, he’ll find something in the middle. He’s never been good at making compromises, but where it matters—he thinks he can make it work. And this matters. Charles matters.

“What do they feel like? The ears.”

Charles blinks. Like he was not expecting that. Good, Max thinks. Maybe this can still be salvaged.

He brings a hand up to one of his cat ears, playing with the tip and chewing on the inside of his mouth.

“They are like—” Charles says. “Like, how do you call it? Accessories. I can feel them, but I cannot control them. It is annoying.” He wets his mouth, makes his upper lip shiny. Max forces himself not to follow the movement. “I am told that they… follow my emotions.”

Yes, Max thinks. I know. I know you, and you have never been easier to read.

They fall back into silence, but it isn’t anything like what it was minutes ago. And in a strange turn of events, Max hopes, he prays, that the technicians will take their time fixing this elevator.

Charles chews on his lip for a moment, cheeks pink, but Max can’t tell if that’s from the warmth of the elevator or something else. But then, in an almost unintelligible exhale of words, almost unintelligible, he says, “You can touch them, if you want.”

Max inhales. It’s a sharp, loud noise. Embarrassingly so. “I can?”

Charles’ ears go uneven, his tail swishing behind him. “Only if you want to,” he says, defensively. He hurries to add, “We will be in here for a while, I think. And if it will help you not be so weird about it.”

I don’t think, Max reckons, I could be any weirder about this, as he brings his hand up to Charles’ ear, past the shell of his pink, human ear, and up to the one atop his head. The new one. The one that has sent Max into a spiral for the past month.

He is slow about it, his heart in his mouth.

His knuckles brush Charles’ ear. He does not flinch. He does not jump back frightened, like Jimmy and Sassy do sometimes. Instead, he leans into the touch. He is so warm and so close. Max hadn’t thought that they could get any closer, but they can, Max finds out, and he gains courage, like when he is in the car and he sees a gap and knows he can go for it and dive down the inside and do something beautiful. Gently, he runs a thumb over the fuzzy part of Charles’ cat ear. It feels so real, he thinks, with wonder, and Charles’ breath is hot over the inner part of his arm, and—

Was that—

Charles jumps back. Max pulls his hand away.

“Sorry, I—” Charles blurts, at the same time Max says, “Does that—”

Charles swallows nervously. He looks mortified, appears beautifully pink all over. Max lets him speak first. “That has never happened before.”

That.

Charles purred.

Max knows what that means, but he doesn’t—he doesn’t know if it means the same thing, with Charles. Heart stuttering, he apologizes. “Sorry,” he says, hand flexing on his thigh.

“Don’t be sorry,” Charles mumbles, eyes wide and unblinking, irises bright, his breaths coming heavy.

Max licks his lips. Charles is a little further away now. Despite the distance, Max can see him clearly, in 4K quality. Every detail. Every birthmark, every mole. He could count the hairs on Charles’ face, if he tried hard enough.

The world seems so small, in this cramped elevator. So small, that Max has the courage to ask, “What about your tail?”

Flushing, caught-off guard, Charles avoids eye contact for a second, gaze dropping to his feet, before he answers, “Um. It is very sensitive.”

“Sensitive?” Max rasps, starting to feel lightheaded.

“I would rather you not touch it,” Charles says softly.

Max sucks in a breath. “Okay,” he exhales, running a sweaty hand along the front of his thigh, the jean fabric rough against his palm. He swallows, shudders, at the sight of Charles’ pink, shiny face; his eyes, still looking at Max.

“Is anything else different? Or is it just—” he says, and gestures vaguely at the cat ears and tail.

Charles blinks. Slow and careful. “I am sleepier,” he says. “I have to drink more caffeine, or I will nap all the time.”

It seems like the truth. However, Max notices his ears twitching, his tail doing something odd, like he is hiding something.

Leap of faith.

“Just that?” Max asks, voice unfamiliar, darker, lower.

Something has changed, Max is acutely aware. Things have changed in a mere blink, a split second, a fraction of a heartbeat. Something claws at his insides. Maybe something he cannot tame.

Charles squirms, like he isn’t the one pressed against the handrail, the wall, the fogged-up mirror. Like he is prey and making himself so. Caught in the cruel jaws of something larger than himself. Something imaginary, something that is not there.

“My teeth,” Charles replies, like a secret he has held close to his chest, like something dangerous. “My canines are sharper.”

“Yeah?” Max wonders, a husk of what it was. “I hadn’t noticed.” He really hadn’t. Maybe he should’ve looked closer. Maybe he was looking in all the wrong places. No longer, he thinks, then asks, “Can I see?”

Charles’ pupils are blown. Almond-shaped. His throat bobs. And he nods.

Slowly, Charles opens his mouth. Tilts his jaw back so that Max can see—all of him. Then—he closes his eyes, screws them shut, embarrassed, but willing. The air feels thick, and Max cannot help but lift his hand and cup his jaw. Run his thumb along Charles’ lower lip, only because he has offered it. Newton’s third law. The slide is spit-wet, makes it easy for Max to slip his finger into Charles’ mouth, the heel of his palm feather-light against his jaw as he glides the inside of his thumb along his lower row of teeth. Charles makes a small noise—a whimper, maybe, but he does not wince, does not pull away. Shocked as he may be, he keeps his mouth open for Max to probe, pliant, obedient, even though Max has not said a single word and has not laid out a single order. Not there, Max reminds himself, and runs his thumb up to Charles’ canines, the smooth, sharp outline of them. Wet.

Charles does not bite, does not snap his jaws like he could—like his nature demands. His nature is sharp and unyielding like it is for all who want everything so vividly and entirely like they do. Like it is for all who would choose to have nothing over the half—I will have it all and I will have it whole, or I will have nothing, that is how I am and that is how I will be. Like it is for people like them. But the secret is: you must curb your nature, that violent, monstrous thing inside you. You must choose to take what you can, point by point, place by place—you cannot have it all, so you must learn to settle for the half. Speed is easy. Wanting is easy. But settling? That’s the hard part. That is what people like them have to learn. It is the only thing they have to learn. To be violent is innate; to be gentle is learned.

Always, they will be learning.

Here and now, Charles does not bite. He curbs his violence. He chooses to be gentle.

So too will Max.

“Yeah,” he breathes out, pulling the digit out of Charles’ mouth, but not removing his hand, keeping it in place. He dries his finger on the corner of Charles’ plush, still parted mouth, stubble rough on his thumb, and Charles finally opens his eyes and it feels like time has stopped, feels like he is staring into a black hole, feels like this is something he might not come back from. “They’re sharper.”

They are.

“Max,” Charles whispers, heaving in a breath, then exhaling out, a mewl escaping his lips. His eyes are dilated and so dark, the last shade before black. It is like he is hypnotized. It is like he is asking, Do you feel it too? He does not need to ask. Max understands. Yes, he thinks. Of course, I do, I have never felt anything more.

Max feels like he’s at the event horizon; once they cross this line there will be no going back. But has there ever been that? A going back. It feels, Max thinks dimly, like they have been going two-hundred miles per hour all their lives and there is no more road left for them to drive and no more apexes for them to hit and both their brakes are shot and they’re careening into the barriers and all that there is left is to close their eyes and brace for impact.

And Max closes his eyes, but he does not brace.

Yes, he thinks. I know, now. I understand, now.

The impact slams into him and through him. Charles’ mouth, soft and plush; Charles’ hands, hard and firm; Charles, who gasps as Max grabs his hips, bruisingly, and walks them to the adjacent wall, shoves him up against the handrail, the mirror. Charles’ hands fly to Max’s shoulders, then slide up to his hair, running his fingers along his scalp and twisting the strands in his palm, keeping him close, as close as they can get.

Like I would go anywhere else. Like I would want to be anywhere else.

It’s a hungry, biting kiss, and Max realizes he was a fool for thinking it would be anything but—he has dreamed of this, all of the possibilities, but at the end of the day, there is only this, there was only ever this. Charles is clutching him tightly, fingers curling beneath Max’s ears, like he is afraid Max will somehow escape this broken lift. Even if Max wanted to, he would not—he would not ever leave. And he makes sure to show it, makes sure to show Charles just how hungry he is, just how hungry he can be. The sides of their noses press together, their mouths starved and eager; then it slows. It lingers. Max wants to linger, wants to cherish this.

In all the years that he has known Charles, in all the years that have mattered, he has gotten too used to the wanting—the having, that part is rare.

He shoves his thigh between Charles, and Charles lets out the loveliest gasp. He is so lovely. Max wants every part of him. Fuck the halves, Max thinks. I want all of you. It is in my nature to want you.

Crowded up against the wall, Charles starts to squirm, starts to—grind onto Max’s thigh, making sweet whimpers. Like he is overwhelmed, and Max wants to overwhelm him. So he bites, softly, into Charles’ lower lip; when Charles tilts his head back to suck in a needed breath, Max sees the gap and makes it stick. He slides his mouth over the side of Charles’ cheek and bites, gentle, the faintest press of teeth, before he licks down to Charles’ throat, closes his mouth over the side of his neck, his heartbeat held between Max’s teeth. Max sucks the salt off his skin with a bruise in the shape of his teeth, a kiss that is not gentle, a kiss with the barest hint of violence. His hand finds the hollow of Charles’ throat, like a ghost. Charles pants into the air, rocking onto Max’s thigh; his fingers knot and twist in Max’s hair and pain blooms; Max welcomes it, sighing into Charles’ neck once he’s leaved a bruise he knows will stay, knows will stick. Selfishly, Max wants everyone to look at Charles today and think—I cannot have him. I cannot have him because someone else wants him. Someone else has had him.

Charles is cursing in French. “Max, Max,” he breathes, trying to tug Max back up, back up to his mouth, and Max lets him, pleased when he sees a glimpse of the bruise on Charles’ neck; pleased when he sees Charles’ ruddy mouth, slightly parted, swollen-wet. His face is flushed and his eyes are wide, wanting. They drop to Max’s lips. Max mirrors him.

There is movement behind Charles, Max is only now noticing. His tail is swishing, trapped behind him, the tip twitching. Max feels unbidden. Unmoored.

Max slips his thumbs under Charles’ polo, finds the v-cut of Charles’ abs, lets them settle there, a new home. He kisses, light and teasing, the corner of Charles’ mouth, and Charles makes an unhappy noise, grabbing Max’s shoulders and pushing himself off of the wall, pushing Max back to the spot where they started.

Max is just slightly taller, but like this, they are the same.

Their breaths are synchronized, and the world narrows, sharpens into a singularity.

Charles’ catlike eyes, the slope of his nose, the curl of his mouth. You are so beautiful, Max wants to say, but he cannot find the words.

Instead, Max tangles his fingers at the base of Charles’ scalp, fingers twisting strands of hair—and tugs. He yanks so that Charles’ head angles back—at Max’s mercy, at his will, throat exposed. With his other hand, Max traces his jaw, admires the bobs of his throat, the way his lips stay parted—burns the image of him into his retinas. The gorgeous shape of him, contours and contours. Just for a moment; he could linger for hours and he does not think it would be enough—it could never be enough. But they don’t have time. So Max swoops in for another kiss, swipes his tongue along the seam of Charles’ mouth, and Charles sighs dreamily. At the end of the day, however, he is just like Max—he is always wanting.

“I want,” he starts, manages against Max’s lips, making the prettiest sounds. He is so muscled, everywhere he is strong, and he is anything but soft, but he is pliant and needy and wanting and Max has never wanted anyone more. “Please.”

Max grabs his hips again, tugs him closer, until Charles is half-sitting on Max’s thigh again, except Max is the one against the wall, the handrail digging painfully into his lower back but right now, he couldn’t care less.

“I know,” Max exhales, nipping at the lobe of Charles’ ear—his human one. “Come on,” he commands. “As much as you want. Take.”

Charles pulls away, but keeps his lower body pressed up against Max’s, still straddling Max’s thigh. He is so hard; it is maddening, Max thinks, to feel so vividly how much Charles wants him back. He holds his breath as Charles’ eyes find his once more.

It is always like that with Charles; it is always a game of finding one another in impossible places.

He puts his hands on Max’s thighs, steadying himself. He is shy about it. His cheeks are the color of apples, and his cat ears keep twitching. Adorably, and for the first time, every part of him is like a book written in a language that Max knows by heart.

Max holds him firmly. Charles, positioned slightly above him in this position, is still motionless, so Max helps him get started, rocking Charles’ hips, letting him roll onto his thigh. Charles looks so mortified, embarrassed by his own want, yet he does not look away—he keeps his eyes on Max’s as he slowly follows the rhythm Max has created for him.

It’s not a great position they’re in. It’s awkward, and it’s taking all of Max’s lower body strength to stay balanced, and he cannot move much, but he does not want a single thing to change.

It is everything like before and nothing like before. Hungry and heated, but tentative, like they do not know how much they can take from one another. Take it all, Max thinks. Take everything you want.

They keep going, like that, with Charles grinding down onto Max’s thigh, his tail swishing wildly behind him, his ears twitching, his chest heaving with cute pants. It is a slow kiss, a slow rhythm, but Max’s heart is a fucking rocket ship in his chest. Charles starts to hurtle toward a peak, and he shyly buries his face in Max’s shoulder, his lips plush, warm, and wet against Max’s bare skin. Max is painfully hard against Charles’ hip, has been this whole time, he only faintly registers now, but this isn’t about him.

“Max,” Charles whines, and Max decides that that is his favorite sound—his name in Charles’ mouth. “I’m going to, I think—”

“Yeah,” Max responds, dumbly, screwing his eyes shut and pressing his lips to the side of Charles’ head. “You can—”

The elevator lurches, and Max reflexively wraps his arms around Charles’ waist.

Shouting and terrified, Charles presses his entire body weight against Max, fingertips digging into his shoulders for balance, his tail curling around Max’s waist—as the lift screeches violently.

And then—

It settles, and the lift starts to descend like normal.

A voice comes onto the elevator speaker, announcing: “It should be fixed now. On behalf of the hotel, we are so sorry for the disturbance. We hope you two have a good race weekend.”

The intercom cuts to silence.

The spell breaks, but it takes a few long seconds for either of them to move.

Charles moves first. He detaches his hands from Max’s shoulders and wrestles himself out of Max’s hold. Takes a step back. He turns around to hide his face, but there is no hiding his tucked-back ears, nor his tail curling around his stomach.

Max brings his fists to his face and scrubs at his eyes.

Breathes in. Breathes out.

And the elevator doors open.

SILVERSTONE

“So.”

Max clears his throat. This is probably in the top ten most awkward experiences he has had in his whole life. “So,” he echoes, then he brings his drink up to his lips and sips from the straw, for lack of anything better to do.

It’s the first words either of them have spoken since they slid into this booth together.

“Great race today, right?”

“Yeah, great,” Max says, kind of wishing to be anywhere but here, in a sticky booth in the VIP area of a sweaty club at the official post-race afterparty.

But Lando said they should go out. Celebrate the 1-2. So.

“Er,” Oscar says, scratching the back of his neck, “you don’t have to, like, babysit me, or anything.”

Max blinks rapidly. “What?”

The thing is, he kind of is babysitting Oscar. Unwillingly, on both their parts. Lando’s their DD, but the thing is, Lando isn’t even here. He fucked off half an hour ago with Fewtrell, to fucking… Honestly, to probably to fuck in the toilet, or something.

Max would’ve taken a taxi back to his hotel, but he doesn’t want to leave Oscar here alone. And it’s not like he doesn’t like Oscar. It’s just…

“Like,” Oscar tries, chewing on the inside of his mouth, “if you want to go talk to Charles, you can.”

It’s the three gin-and-tonics that makes Max slow to respond. “I don’t—” he starts, then shakes his head. “What?”

Oscar cringes, bright pink even in the dim lighting of the club. “Mate, you’ve kind of been staring at him, for, like, the past ten minutes.”

Heat floods Max’s cheeks. Denying it won’t do any good. He runs his thumb along the rim of his glass. “Are you sure?”

Oscar laughs. “Mate, I’m gonna call an Uber in a minute either way.”

Max rubs his palm along the side of his face. “Yeah,” he says. “I think that would be best.” He finishes the rest of his drink, ice clattering against glass when he puts it down on the table, then starts to slide out of the booth. He turns back to Oscar, the Uber app pulled up on his phone, then bites his lower lip. He should probably say something.

“Congrats on the weekend, mate,” he says, offering his hand. He’s already congratulated Oscar, but he feels like it deserves a second mention.

Oscar rolls his eyes, but clasps it. “I didn’t win the race.”

Max brings his hand to his pocket and snorts. “You qualified in the top three in your rookie season,” he points out. “You’ll get there eventually.”

Oscar’s eyes widen at the praise, face even more pink than it was moments ago. Max means it, but it’s not like he’s going to make it any easier for him, or anyone, at any rate.

Charles is at the other end of the VIP area, Carlos is next to him, and they’re engaged in conversation. Carlos is leaning into Charles’ space, his mouth right by Charles’ ear, his whole body turned toward him. Well, Max thinks. It can’t be too important.

When Charles notices him approaching, he immediately stops talking to Carlos. The lighting is too dark for Max to get a good look at Charles’ expression, from this far away; however, his tail flies up, curling slightly, and his ears perk up. Max’s heart flutters.

He slides into the booth, next to Charles. Their thighs touch. He feels so warm. Fake smoke is sweet in Max’s nostrils.

“Hello,” Charles says, a cut of laser light sliding across his face. He is so beautiful like this. Even more beautiful than he was from across the room. He’s wearing a loose white dress shirt, the top buttons popped, the birthmark on his collar exposed. Max glances at his neck; thinks about the hickey he left on the side of Charles’ throat, just one week ago; and swallows.

“Hi,” he says, then bites his lip, not knowing what else to say. Maybe those three gin-tonics were more like four, five. Six.

The thing is, they haven’t gotten a single chance to talk to each other since Austria. Since—the lift.

They’ve been up on the podium together, they’ve been in pressers together, and they’ve debriefed, but they haven’t—talked. Not really. Not about the things that matter.

He slides his hand along the velvety leather of the seat. Licks his lips. Thinks.

“How are you?” Charles asks, after an awkward beat.

“I am good,” Max says, instead of any of the things he really wants to say. “How are you?”

The inside of Charles’ cheek goes hollow. “Okay. Not the best race for me.”

“Yeah,” Max says lamely, not really knowing what to say. “I figured.”

“Great race for you, though,” Charles says.

Max nods. “Yeah. Great result for the team.”

“Six wins now. Do you think you will beat Seb’s record?” Charles asks.

Max tugs on his ear. “Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe. I try not to think about it.”

“Only a few more to go.”

“Yeah. Four more.”

“Oh my god,” Carlos groans, and Max realizes, Oh, right. You are here too. “I will go,” he sighs, sliding out from the booth and standing up, “and you two will talk.”

And then he is gone.

Max looks around the space, the midnight swirl of bodies and smoke and velvet and light. He looks back at Charles. “Nice club.”

Charles blinks at him, licking his lips. Max stares at the dip of his Cupid’s bow. “Yeah. I like the lights.”

“It’s a lot like,” Max starts, gesturing with his hands, “in Singapore, the club we were at then.”

Charles nods, and his nose scrunches cutely. His eyes flick to the table, at his drink. “The drinks are not as good here, though.”

“They are not,” Max agrees, though he isn’t sure if he means it. They got him drunk, and that’s all that really matters. Charles brings his drink up to his mouth, his tongue darting out to curl over the straw. Max sucks in a breath, then asks, “What are you drinking?”

“Um,” Charles says, putting his drink back down on the table. “A vodka-tonic.”

“Nice,” Max says, and they fall into silence—well, as silent as it can get amongst the booming, vibrating music of the club.

A song chorus passes, and a verse, then the chorus again, then the bridge, the outro—all in silence. The next song plays. Charles frowns, and his tail curls around his bicep.

Max’s heart stutters. He has done this all wrong.

“Charles,” he starts, “I—”

“There you are,” a voice shouts over the music, and Max startles, sitting up straight, his head following the voice. Lando. Great. “Jeez, I’ve been all over looking for you,” he says. Fewtrell’s arm is slung around his shoulders, cheek pressed to Lando’s shoulder—clearly very drunk. Lando’s face is flushed, cap on backwards, shirt mostly undone, and he looks over the moon with joy. “Are you ready to leave?”

“I—”

“Max and I’re gonna head,” Lando shouts, “if you want a lift.”

“I…” Max glances at Charles, looking wide-eyed and overwhelmed. His hand is curled around his drink.

Lando’s gaze follows Max’s, and he asks, “Charles, you want a lift too? Hilton, right?”

In the span of a few seconds, Charles blinks a thousand times. Max is impossibly endeared. He looks at Max, who doesn’t say anything—only looks, looks, and looks—before answering, “Yes, sure.”

They scoot out of the booth. As Charles stands, Max wraps his arm around Charles’ waist, like they do on podiums—easy, natural, automatic. He does not think about it.

He leads Charles through the floor, past bodies and bodies, and they follow Lando and Fewtrell out to the street. They walk to where the valet left Lando’s car.

“Either of you want a sobering charm?” Lando asks. He’s always loved magic like that, drinking little health vials before each race, bringing little dreamcatchers from home to all his hotel rooms. Max is pretty sure it’s mere placebo. A few magic items on the market work; most of them don’t. Some have unintended side-effects. Max prefers to steer clear of all magic when he can, has his team ensure that the gifts he gets from fans have been neutralized before he brings them back to Monaco with him.

Look where it got Charles. It’s been more than a month now, and the cat tail and the cat ears show no signs of disappearing.

Maybe he will be like this forever.

“No thank you,” Charles says, still pressed to Max’s side. His tail has curled around Max’s wrist, as if to keep him close. “They make me too nauseous.”

“Max?”

Max blinks, distracted by the warmth of Charles’ tail. He shakes his head. “They don’t work on me.”

“Suit yourselves,” Lando says, and enjoy the nasty hangover you’ll have, goes unsaid.

Once they reach the car, Lando and Fewtrell climb into the front two seats. Before Max can open the side door, Charles stops him and speaks up. “Lando,” he says. Under the bright streetlights, Max only now sees the flush on his cheeks, the moles scattered under his eyes like stars, the shine of his mouth, the mouth that Max had on his own, just a week ago. Max swallows at the memory: Charles, his hands slung around Max’s neck; Charles, sighing dreamily into his mouth; Charles, kissing back so sweetly; Charles, rolling his hips and humping Max’s thigh. “Could you give us a moment?”

Lando makes a whatever noise and shuts the driver door.

Charles turns back around, bites his bottom lip, takes a deep breath.

“Charles,” Max starts, grateful that they’re finally on the same page. “About Austria—”

Beautifully, Charles grabs his face with both of his hands, his strong, beautiful hands, and kisses him. His hands are firm, but his lips are sweet and eager—needy. Hesitant. At least until Max grabs him by the waist and pins him to the side of the car, takes control of the kiss. Charles gasps as his spine hits the window, as Max shoves a knee between Charles’ thigh—picking up where they left off in Austria. Yes, Austria, Max thinks. They were going to talk about Austria, but neither of them have ever been good at that—the talking. There are five languages between them but only one that they share—but it is a learned language, not one that either of us know by heart, not one that either of us dream in. But that’s alright. We know what matters; we know everything that matters; we know how to race and we know how to do this. This is how we understand each other.

This is how we will make each other understand.

Charles’ arms slide around Max’s neck, and he squirms beneath him, mewls softly into his mouth; Max swallows the noise, kisses him deeper, sloppier, hungrier.

“Oh my fucking god?” Fewtrell shouts, and Max vaguely registers his head poked out of the window. He doesn’t care. He keeps kissing Charles, Charles keeps kissing back; honestly, Charles is so lovely. “Get in the fucking car before someone sees you two.”

Honestly, Max would keep kissing Charles, would take him right on the side of Lando’s car, but then Lando is slamming his hand on the car horn and Fewtrell starts smacking him on his arm—and it gets annoying enough that Max finally pulls away slightly. He frees one of his hands to cup Charles’ face, to brush Charles’ cheekbone, noses touching, butterfly kisses. And then he dives back in for another kiss; soft, just the sweetest press of lips. Charles meets him in the middle, his lips so plush and soft.

Another honk.

Groaning, Max finally finds the door handle behind Charles. And it’s a bit of a dance, desperate to keep their hands on each other, but they manage to get the car open. In reverse, Charles slides in, falls onto his back, and he laughs when Max hits his forehead trying to come inside. He barely succeeds in closing the door behind him before he falls on top of Charles, both of them horizontal, Charles bent in a weird angle, head against the window, his legs sprawled across the back seats.

It’s a hard fit, but they make it work.

“Hello,” Charles says, hand finding Max’s cheek, his ears twitching happily, his tail curling around Max’s stomach. Dimples are deep in his cheeks, even in the darkness.

“Hi,” Max whispers, grinning so hard his face starts to hurt, but it doesn’t matter, because Charles soon tugs him down for another kiss.

“I will crash this car if you two don’t keep it in your pants,” Lando announces.

Max hums unbothered against Charles’ lips. “Go ahead,” he murmurs, licking into Charles’ mouth, sucking on his tongue, and swallowing a moan.

Lando squawks, exasperated, and starts the engine. Fewtrell puts on some loud, booming rap music that makes Max laugh against Charles’ mouth. Lando drives smoothly, the car rolling to a stop at each light. Time snails and crawls with teasing kisses, Charles giggling when Max kisses the side of his throat. Max could do this forever.

Then:

The car stops and the engine cuts. It can’t have been more than a few minutes, Max thinks, bewildered. His Milton Keynes flat is at least twenty minutes away.

“Alright, lovebirds,” Lando says. “This is Charles’ hotel. Both of you, out.”

Beneath Max, Charles is still. His mouth is parted, pink and shiny. His eyes are catlike, blinking slowly.

“I cannot go if you do not get off of me,” Charles says.

“Of course,” Max says, heart dropping.

It’s even more difficult getting out of the car than it is getting into it. His head bangs against the roof of the car, and Charles almost knees him in the balls as they try to disentangle from one another. Max gets the door open eventually and climbs out of it, cheeks bursting in flames when he notices that the doormen are watching with wide eyes. He helps Charles out, pulling him up to his feet by his waist.

“Thank you,” Charles says, polite as always. His hair is a mess, completely flat on the back but like a palm tree on top, where Max had been running his fingers through it. He is sure that he must not look any better.

“You’re welcome,” Max says, chewing on his lip. He places his hand on the back of his neck, hot to the touch, and steps to the side to let Charles through.

He is kicking himself for not stealing another kiss.

Charles starts walking, but then he turns around to frown at Max, stationary by the still-open car door. One of his ears flattens, the other is straight. “Are you not going to come in with me?”

Max’s eyes widen. So he—

So Charles wants—

“Max?” Charles asks, tilting his head to the side. The moonlight falls on his face, accents the slope of his nose. Pretty, Max thinks.

“I—” Max starts, trying to pull himself back together. He quickly sobers, stomach dropping to his shoes when he recalls his schedule. “I can’t,” he says, kicking himself internally when Charles’ face stiffens, his ears flattening on his head. It’s the exact same look he had back in Monaco, when Max hadn’t said he looked cute. “I have to… Milton Keynes, tomorrow morning. I need to be in the sim.”

“Oh,” Charles exhales, his brows knitting together. He licks his lips. His swollen lips. Swollen, because of Max.

Max needs to fix this. “I’m sorry, I—”

Charles shakes his head with a small laugh. “It’s fine,” he says, playing with his hands, his tail swishing wildly behind him. “I will see you in Budapest,” he decides.

Before Max can say anything, Charles has made his way inside.

Numbly, Max climbs back into the car, weakly shutting the door behind him.

It is silent for a long time.

“Mate…” Lando says, turned around and facing Max, shock and disappointment clear on his face.

Max throws his face into his hands. “Oh my god.”

How does he keep fucking this up?

BUDAPEST

“I think Charles is mad at me,” Max says, loud enough that Lando can hear it over the cheers of the crowd, but quiet enough that Charles, on the other side of the truck they’re being paraded around in.

“Gee,” Lando says, rolling his eyes. “I wonder why.”

Max frowns. “I really had to be in the sim the next morning.”

“Right,” Lando drawls, smiling and waving at the crowd, “because the RB-19 needs it.”

Max huffs and crosses his arms over his chest.

“Fine,” Lando sighs, long-suffering. “What’s wrong with you two?”

“I tried to talk to him earlier and he walked away,” Max explains. He tried on Thursday when he saw Charles by the garages. He tried yesterday in the media pen after qualifying. He tried before the drivers parade. Charles’ tail went bushy and his ears dropped flat whenever he caught sight of Max, each time.

Lando narrows his eyes. “Just like you were doing after Monaco.”

Max flushes; the hot sun bearing down on him doesn’t make it any better. “Well that was of course for a different reason,” he defends.

“Nope,” Lando says, leaning over the railing to wave at a grandstand especially filled with people with neon yellow caps, “I think it was for the same reason.”

Max lifts a brow. “Which is?”

Sighing, Lando turns to face him, a brow raised. “You wanted to fuck him, so you avoided him.”

“I—”

“And he wants to fuck you, so,” Lando goes on. Max feels his heart stop. Not like he didn’t know that. But hearing it out loud from a third-party is. A lot. “And I just wanna say,” Lando says, tiredly. “If you two are going to fuck, please don’t do it in the back of my car. Like, what the fuck was that?”

SPA

The problem is, Max never ended up getting to talk to Charles in Budapest. There was the whole mess with the broken trophy, then there was the twelve-wins-in-a-row celebration with Red Bull, and by the time that he was released from media duties, Charles was long gone.

Spa isn’t much better. Before and after Max flies to Belgium, he considers texting Charles, asking him if they can meet, but he’s too busy with family and hometown friends to entertain the possibility.

But then, there is qualifying—on Friday, which is still strange to Max.

Max gets pole. Charles is in the top three.

Charles, also, still has his cat ears and tail.

It has been more than two months.

Well, Max thinks, climbing out of the car. It’s now or never.

In parc fermé, after he takes off his helmet and puts on his cap, after he hugs his mechanics, he finds Charles, already talking with Checo.

He clasps Charles on the shoulder. Charles stiffens, his tail nearly hitting Max in the face.

Turning around, Charles apologizes, then bites his lip.

He is so gorgeous, balaclava lines pressed into his red cheeks, sweat dripping down the side of his neck, his hair a complete mess.

Max opens his mouth to say something, but he quickly realizes that he has no idea what to say. He knows what he wants to say, but he can’t get any of it out.

“Great lap,” Charles says first, because he is polite like that. Because the cameras are pointed toward them.

“Yeah,” Max says, brows lifting. He starts to go on automatic, puts his hands in front of him, and starts to explain, “I was able to gain a lot of time in turn one, and in sector two, the car seemed to take the corners well, so I—”

Charles is staring at him, lukewarm and unimpressed.

Max breathes in deeply. He breathes out. Tries again.

He brings his hands back to his sides and says, hoping that the mics won’t pick this conversation up. “I am sorry about Silverstone.”

Charles’ eyes soften. He plays with the Ferrari hat in his hands, the one he can’t even wear comfortably because of his ears, and he shifts on his feet. “You had to be in the sim. I understand.”

“Then why—”

Charles’ ears turn back, and his tail curls around his bicep. He licks his lips. “I was just. Frustrated. I couldn’t tell if you—” He looks around insecurely, his voice quiet when he says, “Really wanted me.”

Max laughs. He knows he shouldn’t, but he does, his head falling. When he finally lifts it to glance at Charles, Charles is glaring at him—furious, feline rage.

But Max is good with cats, he thinks. He finally knows what to say.

So Max takes a step forward, close enough that Charles nervously sucks in a breath, his eyes widening, almond-shaped and catlike. He makes sure that only Charles can hear it when he says, “I always want you.”

“Oh,” Charles says, and Max’s eyes flit to the soft bob of his throat.

In the distance, Max can see the stewards walking over to them, trying to direct them to the spot for interviews. Max bites the inside of his mouth and preemptively takes matters into his own hands, lightly taking Charles by the waist and guiding him over to where Checo is, speaking with Tom.

“I am flying home,” Charles says, pressing his lips together. “Right after the race.”

“Oh,” Max replies, disappointed as he drops his hand from Charles’ waist. Checo is going on about tyres and mixed conditions, about turns eight and nine—they don’t have much time left.

“But you will call me,” Charles adds—demands, really. His chin is tilted up, his tail curled cutely behind his back. “Once you land in Monaco.”

“I will,” Max says immediately—he doesn’t have to think about it. Not at all. “I will be—I will be here in Belgium, for a few more days, but—” He slows down, tries to get his head in order. “First thing I do.”

Charles brightens, happy and pleased. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay,” Max replies, smiling so hard his face starts to hurt. They have a plan. Things will pan out. He’ll call in a few days, once he’s back in Monaco.

For now, all that’s left is to win the race.

Things don’t go as planned.

Max wins the grand prix, yes, as well as the sprint as an added bonus, but Monday morning, he is in his mum’s house, and he gets a call from Charles. Three, actually—the last of which finally stirred him awake. He only picks up on the fourth.

Sleepily—it is not even noon—he picks up, clears the phlegm from his throat, and asks, “Charles?”

“Max, hello,” someone says. Someone who is definitely not Charles. Confused, Max rubs at his eyes, pulls the duvet from his chest and down to his thighs, sitting up. The world feels all hazy and slow, and he lets out a soft groan.

“This is Andrea Ferrari. Charles’ trainer.”

“Hi?” Max asks, scrubbing at his eyes.

It is silent, for a few moments, before Andrea exhales heavily on the other line. “Okay,” he sighs heavily. “I will just say it. I know you are still in Spa, but how soon can you get to Monaco?”

“Um,” Max says, still getting his bearings.

After a beat, Andrea explains, “Charles needs you.”

Max still doesn’t understand. There are sounds coming from Andrea’s end of the line—unintelligible sounds, like soft panting, like fabric rustling. “What?”

“He is…” Andrea begins reluctantly, “unwell, and he has been asking for you.”

Max’s heart drops. He clears his throat again, still rough with sleep. “Charles is sick?”

A soft exhale from the other end. “He will be fine,” Andrea reassures. It sounds like he is pulling teeth when continues, “He is just—wanting you.”

Something hot curls in Max’s stomach. “What does that mean?”

More silence, before Andrea asks, “You have cats, right?”

“I do,” Max answers, and then he understands. “Oh,” he says, brain short-circuiting, fuses blowing.

“Yeah,” Andrea replies, exasperated.

A beat.

Well. It’s not like Max has to think about it too long. Not like Max would make any other decision.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

MONACO

Max takes his jet straight back to France. From the airport, he speeds back to his apartment. Showers. Brushes his teeth. Speeds over to the address Andrea texted him from Charles’ phone. He street parks, right in front of Charles’ apartment complex, and jogs inside. Immediately, the concierge recognizes him, letting him through.

He takes the stairs, two at a time, and he’s slightly out of breath by the time he makes his way to the door of Charles’ apartment. He steels himself, then knocks.

The door comes open. It is Andrea.

“Where is he?” Max instantly demands, stepping inside and slightly bullying his way past Andrea in the process, slipping off his shoes. Andrea closes the door behind him.

“Inside,” he answers, standing at the door.

“How is he?” Max asks, heart in his throat. He knows what it is, probably, what Charles is going through, but he does not know what it must be like for him. He has no idea.

“He’s fine,” Andrea says, shaking his head. “He is just… It is a complication of the spell that was cast on him, we think.”

The spell seems stronger than anyone anticipated it to be. While it’s a harmless condition, at least according to Charles, one that doesn’t affect his racing, the fact that it has been more than two months and the cat ears and tail haven’t gone away is worrying.

The current side-effect, whatever this is, is even more worrying. It’s deceptively strong magic.

Max can’t help but wonder what else is different. What other complications there are that Charles hadn’t told him, that Charles hadn’t known about, maybe.

“Yeah,” Max says, because he doesn’t know what else to say, shifting on his feet. This is why you don’t fuck with magic, he thinks, but doesn’t end up saying. It won’t do anyone any good, he thinks.

He and Andrea are stationary by the door for at least half a minute, silent and awkward. Max doesn’t know what the procedure here is. What he is allowed.

He does not want to overstep.

“Well,” Andrea announces, running his palms over his workout shorts. “I will leave, and you will take care of him,” he says. It is not a question; it is more like an order.

Max frowns, offended that Andrea would think he would do anything else. “Of course I will.”

Scoffing, Andrea turns around and turns the doorknob. Before he’s gone, he says, “You better.”

Charles’ apartment is pretty small—it’s less than half of the area of Max’s own place, from what he can tell. He navigates past the hall, past the kitchen, past the piano, past the lounge, to the bedroom with ease. He stops, however, at the door, torn between opening it without knocking and knocking.

He chooses to knock.

No response.

He puts his ear to the door, and hears light rustling, like bedsheets, and soft breathing.

He bites his lip, knocks again, and shouts, “It’s Max.”

A few seconds snail by before he hears more rustling, and then, “It is open.”

So Max opens the door, and the sight he sees has him breathless.

Charles, bright pink and sweaty; Charles, shirtless, the duvet pulled over his lap, a foot peeking out from the side; Charles, the mole on his neck, sweat pooled above his collarbone; Charles, his hair a mess, knuckles white around the sheets; Charles, his eyes shiny, ears flat to his chest, his tail curled behind him.

“Charles,” Max breathes out, running to the side of the bed, putting one knee on the bed before he can think twice about it. “Oh my god.”

Charles lets out a miserable noise, like he’s in pain.

“Hey, hey,” Max says, grabbing Charles’ face. Charles, whose lips part, his eyes dilating. Max strokes his cheek. And Max, because he cannot help it, closes his eyes, and kisses him.

Charles sighs in instantaneous, blissful relief, kissing back weakly.

Max pulls back, breathing him in. Charles sighs a pitiful noise, so Max quiets him, peppering feather-light kisses on both his cheeks, damp with either sweat or tears, then presses their foreheads together, noses brushing. He finally settles down, but still, he is so hot. He is burning. The A/C is on full blast, but Charles feels like he’s just driven the Singapore Grand Prix three times over.

“I’m sorry,” Charles says in a small voice, sounding winded.

Max frowns, giving Charles some distance. He opens his eyes. “Why are you sorry?”

Charles hesitates, biting his lip, before answering, “I made you fly back to Monaco.”

Max shakes his head. He gently drags his hands down along Charles’ neck, resting on his shoulders. “You did not make me do anything. I wanted to be here.”

“But your family—”

“Will always be there,” Max reassures, and he tries to find some way to make Charles understand. “You are important to me,” he decides on—and it seems to work, Charles’ face opening up in awe.

Max takes the moment to examine the state of Charles’ bedroom. When he first walked in, there was nothing he could see but Charles. Now, he notices that the sheets are damp; that clothes are discarded chaotically across the floor; that there is an empty plastic liter bottle of water knocked over on the side table, that water has pooled beneath Charles’ bed.

“It is messy, I know,” Charles mutters, sounding mortified. “I will clean it later.”

“I can help you clean it,” Max decides, standing up. He haphazardly looks around the room, trying not to trip over any of the items on the floor. “Where are your paper towels? I can draw a cold shower too, if you—”

“Max. Stop.”

And Max stops. His heart is a wild thing in his chest. It is rare that he is ever put into situations where he does not know what to do. In the car, it is easy. It is like clockwork. Even outside of race weekends, his days are planned to the minute; he always knows what he is allowed and what he has to do. Right now, Max hasn’t got a single grip.

Voice hoarse, pupils blown-wide, Charles says, “Come up here.”

Swallowing, Max takes a small step forward. Charles is watching. He takes another, then another, until he is back up on the bed—with both legs now, sitting in front of Charles. Charles, who has let the duvet fall, slightly, resting just above his hip bones, exposing a happy trail; Charles, who is not wearing a single thing right now; Charles, who is far too beautiful for the naked eye.

“Closer,” Charles demands, and Max obeys, scooting closer.

Max holds his breath when Charles leans in and rests his head in the crook of Max’s shoulder, breathing in, rubbing his face against him. His facial hair is rough against Max’s neck but his lips are soft when he says, “You smell nice.”

“I do?” Max asks, voice cracking when he notices that his knee is pressed against the inside of Charles’ thigh, through the fabric. He is so warm.

“Mmh,” Charles sighs. Relaxed, and with warm affection.

Eyes wide open, Max runs a hand along Charles’ upper back, feeling his wing muscles, hard and sturdy; then the ridges of his spine. “How long have you… been like this?”

“Since I woke up.”

Andrea called Max hours ago, and before that, he has no doubt that Charles tried to deal with it all on his own—he has spent half a day like this, Max comprehends in horror, alone.

“You have a fever,” Max observes. He is hot all over.

Charles nods into his shoulder, shuddering. “I am not well, but it helps,” he reveals shyly, “skin-to-skin contact.”

“Yeah?”

“I am…” Charles begins, squirming. “I am wanting.”

Yes, Max thinks. I know, because I can feel your body against mine as if it were my own. I feel this too, he thinks, but does not say. Instead, Max asks, “What do you want?”

Charles goes very quiet. He removes his head from Max’s shoulder; his throat gives a small bob before he is saying, “Andrea must have told you.”

Max inhales. “He did.”

It is a slow change, how Charles’ eyes pinhole, how one of his cat ears flicks straight, how his tail curls by his head. He tilts his head to the side, then plays with the tip of his cat ear, the one that is still flat.

“You like me like this.”

Max feels dizzy, put on display even though he isn’t the one fully naked right now.

“Yeah,” Max answers, because it is the truth, and Max has never been good at saying anything but the truth. Humiliatingly, he loves it.

Charles lifts a brow. “Only because of this?”

If only you knew. If only you knew that this didn’t start in Monaco. If only you knew how I have felt this way for as long as I can remember. You, like an itch under my skin; you, getting on my nerves; you, making me feel so angry all the time and it wasn’t until I was older and a champion that I finally realized what that all meant, what it all amounted to, what was the root cause.

“No,” Max admits, breathlessly. “Always, I want you.” It is not the first time he has said this to Charles, but the other time was in the paddock, under watchful eyes. Here and now, in Charles’ little shoebox apartment, rolled up in his messy sheets, in a world that is only the two of them, the confession thuds through his chest.

Charles brings his hand to Max’s face; his thumb settles on his cheek, his fingers under his ear.

Max holds his breath, tries not to make a single sound.

A lifetime passes; at once, it feels so small and so enormous, the silence that ensues. Charles studying him, assessing him, his fingertip ghosting over the corner of his mouth; Max wonders what he sees.

“Okay,” Charles says, throat bobbing. He pulls his hand back into his lap. “Then, we can do this,” he says, and before Max can ask what this is, Charles is climbing up into his lap and kissing him breathless.

A shocked noise escapes Max’s throat, but Charles swallows it, licking into his mouth with a fervor, with a fever—with heat, rolling his hips against Max’s crotch. He’s trying to push Max onto his back, to make everything happen fast, to make everything happen now. Max shoves a hand between them, pressing on his chest, pushing Charles back upright in an attempt to slow things down.

“Easy, kitty,” Max breathes out, fondly. His jeans are starting to chafe his thighs, Charles’ entire body weight resting on them.

“Max,” Charles pants, brows screwed together, sounding in pain, trying and failing to chase Max’s lips, pawing at his chest, “I need—”

“I know what you need,” Max says, and he does—he can feel Charles’ dick, rock hard against his belly, he can feel Charles’ heart, pounding in his chest. “Do you trust me?”

“You would not ask you to come if I did not trust you,” Charles hisses, tail swishing impatiently behind him.

It is cute. So cute that Max indulges him with another kiss—light and chaste, before pushing him flat to the bed.

Charles falls with a thud and a gasp, and his hair haloes beautifully around his head. His chest heaves and his face flushes with anticipation. Max steals the moment to take it all in: Charles’ facial hair, his dusty nipples, the ripple of abdominal muscle. Charles has filled out so much, over these past few years, nothing like he was when he was still a rookie and Max still championship-less and angry, so hungry he could not stand it; like when they still didn’t know how to talk to one another, like when they barely fought in races; like when they dreamed of things bigger than themselves, like when they only had what-ifs to fall back on. Nowhere is Charles soft anymore; he and Charles, they have grown so much, they have changed so much, but still, they are here. Still, they are orbiting around one another like a binary star system, chasing after one another, on the track and off it, in perpetuum. Lower: Max couldn’t see it before but now he does. Charles’ dick, pink and thick and shining with precum, a vein running up the side, twitching. Like a wet dream.

You trust me, Max thinks. You trust me to see you like this. You trust me to take care of you.

All my life, I will remember this.

He climbs on top of Charles; Charles, who throws his arms around Max’s neck like a collar instantaneously, tugging him back down for a kiss.

“Does it hurt?”

Charles whimpers, overwhelmed and embarrassed. He tries to hide his face by rolling onto his cheek, and Max allows him that. “It doesn’t—not like. Not pain. Not so much that. But it is—uncomfortable,” he struggles.

Max leaves a kiss on Charles’ cheek. “Where?” he asks, his mouth like a feather against the corner of his mouth. “Here?”

“Fuck you,” Charles mutters, throwing a hissy fit, Max thinks, traitorously. At least he has the decency not to make a joke about it out loud—though he thinks about it, if only to get a reaction out of him.

“What about here?” Max muses, kissing just beneath Charles’ jaw. Closer, he thinks, by the way Charles writhes below him.

Charles shivers. “Lower,” he says, blunt nails digging into Max’s shoulders.

So Max goes lower. Licks the sweat off his collarbone, then runs his tongue along a nipple, lips closing around it, a hint of teeth around the bud. Charles hisses, bucks his hips. Max steadies him by his hips.

“Lower,” Charles repeats in a whining tone.

Max hums, lifting one hand and wrapping his fingers around the base of Charles’ cock. “Here?”

“Oh,” Charles moans, trying to roll his hips forward. “Please—”

“I know,” Max says, leaving a wet kiss on one of Charles’ hip bones before he lets his hand slide up the length of his cock, the motion easy and frictionless with how wet he’s become already. He crawls down until he’s settled between Charles’ legs, shoves them open with his free hand, carving out a space for himself. Charles is ready to oblige. And then: Max presses his thumb into the side of Charles’ cockhead, and Charles squeezes his eyes shut, exhaling shakily.

Poor thing, Max thinks.

“Eyes on me,” he orders, swiping his thumb along the top for good measure. Charles bites down on his lip so hard it might bleed, but he opens his eyes, glossy and dark, lidded and gazing down. Max decides to reward him for listening well.

And Charles makes a faint, shocked noise when Max lines his mouth up with his cockhead, wraps his lips around the bulb, and sucks, circles his tongue around the tip, teasing until he finally dives down, taking Charles all the way down to the base. Charles’ hands find Max’s head, fingers twisting by his scalp; he’s making a mess of Ma’s hair, letting out cute, breathy noises as Max bobs his head up and down, making a rhythm out of it, making it good for him, leaving his dick shiny with saliva. His hands start to toy with his balls, giving them light squeezes every now and then. Charles keeps squirming, but he isn’t bucking his hips up like before—trying to be good. Max pulls up to spit messily along the shaft, leaving a filthy, sloppy kiss on the head before taking him to the base once more.

“Oh my god,” Charles gasps, yanking on Max’s hair harder, until his cock leaves Max’s mouth. “Max, I’m going to—”

Max’s mouth is messy with spit and precum, drool running down his chin. He wipes off of it as much as he can with the back of his hand. “Already?”

Charles is crying, face pink and wet and breathless, tail curled around his own arm like a lifeline. He’s beautiful. It’s haunting. Max feels dizzy at the sight. He keeps a hand curled around Charles’ cock, the other sliding down Charles’ thigh, the furnace of his body.

And then he notices it.

“Down there,” Max rasps, shocked. “You’re—wet.”

Charles stutters an embarrassed noise. “I am not usually—”

“But you are,” Max says, recontextualizing. The bed seemed damp when he first sat on it—he thought it was sweat, but maybe it was also—this. “Is this—”

“Since Monaco,” Charles hurries to explain, his eyes shut. “Whenever I—”

“You didn’t tell me,” Max says, his voice so hoarse it sounds like a stranger. His eyes zero in on the wet, pink pucker below Charles’ dick, pulsing open, dripping with slick. He presses his thumb against it—and Charles bucks, whines, gasps. Sensitive. He is very sensitive, down there, slick and twitching open. Max wants to eat him out there, learn how he tastes, make him hot and wet, thighs clenching around Max’s throat—but he’ll have to save that for another time. Maybe, Max thinks, with delight, for later today.

Lightheaded, Max wets his lips. “When I asked you what was different, you didn’t tell me.”

“It is embarrassing,” Charles mutters, throwing an arm over his eyes. Max doesn’t call him out on it—he can have that, Max decides.

“Well,” Max says, “it makes it easier.”

“What does that—”

And Max swallows Charles down, hollowing his cheeks; he has wanted to do this for so long. Saliva pools around the base of him, and it’s so wet and sloppy but Max is drunk on the feeling, drunk on the sounds of Charles’ stuttering gasps. Max can deepthroat, yes, but he decides to save that for later, for another time. This is enough, he decides, wrapping his hand over the part of Charles he can’t get completely in his mouth. Charles sounds ruined, sounds like he wants more.

So Max decides to give him more. He traces his thumb around his perineum; it’s so slippery everywhere that he has to really focus. Charles feels so small there that, for a moment, he doubts if a finger could even fit in there, in the tight wet heat of him. Regardless, Max replaces his thumb with his index finger, sucking on his dick at the same time he pushes it in slowly.

Max doesn’t have to tell him to relax, because Charles is taking him with practiced ease—his hole not nearly as tight as Max was expecting.

Lifting up, Max asks, “Have you been—”

Charles makes a little noise, attempting to roll his hips forward, get Max deeper. Max digs the fingers of his free hand into Charles’ hip like a warning. Charles is still hiding his eyes, but Max stares at the pretty shape of his mouth, how his lips contour around his words, “It was not enough. I wanted—”

“Couldn’t even wait?” Max asks, feeling insane, his breaths coming out unsteady.

“Needed it,” Charles confesses, his voice raw.

I have you, Max thinks, but doesn’t say, because he is taking Charles back into his mouth and pressing his finger as deep as it will go, until his knuckle is pressed to his rim, and Max is so focused on making Charles feel good, giving him what he needs, that he doesn’t notice how Charles’ moans have grown louder, more reckless. His mouth suctions around Charles’ cockhead as he curls his forefinger toward his belly, and Charles is gone, insides tightening around Max’s finger and spilling into his willing mouth with a wet sob. Max keeps his lips around him, sucking softly.

I have you, Max thinks, wholly and unconditionally. I am looking into your eyes, I am pulling my beating heart from my chest, holding it in my human palms, and I am saying to you: This all is for you. Do what you will with it. Have at it. I trust you not to break it.

Once Charles has seemed to come down, Max pulls off with a wet pop, swallowing. His dick is painfully hard, has been for ages, but this isn’t about him. He wipes his mouth dry with the back of his free hand again, and stares up at Charles—looking dazed, gazing up at the ceiling. He looks out of breath. He looks gorgeous.

“How was that?” Max asks, carefully pulling his finger out, running his hand along the inside of Charles’ thigh.

Charles is panting, like it is hard for him to speak. His hands are limp by his sides. Pliant and relaxed; there is none of the panicked urgency he showed before. Sated.

Good, Max thinks.

“That was—” he starts, throat bobbing, face bright pink, his gaze still fixed on the fluorescent lights of his bedroom, on the ceiling. “You are very good.”

Max laughs, unfortunately running his messy hand in his hair—too late, now. Butterflies flood his belly. “Thanks.”

Max has barely taken off his shirt and his jeans before Charles is sitting up and squirming, tail lashing behind him—it has barely been minutes since he last came, but he is already hard again. He knew that Charles would be wanting—in a seemingly perpetual state of arousal—but maybe he underestimated Charles. Maybe he has been underestimating him this entire time.

“Max,” Charles calls, low and sultry, like a goddamn succubus. Max’s brain is melting out of his ears, and he goes to kiss Charles, underwear be damned. The soft give of his mouth is addicting; his mouth sweeter than anything Max has ever tasted, plump like a peach—he wants to bite.

He doesn’t. He breaks the kiss, and their lips separate with a wet smack, a line of spit still connecting their mouths. Charles makes a wounded noise in protest, and Max rolls his eyes and swoops back down to join their lips again. He’ll just have to multitask, thumbs slipping under the band of his briefs, and at the same time, kissing Charles until both their lips are raw.

Once he’s gotten his briefs off, sighing in relief—he has been hard ever since he first kissed Charles—he breaks the kiss once more, and before Charles can complain, he rolls Charles over, shoves a soft pillow under his hips, and makes a space for himself between his legs.

Charles looks back at him, broad-shouldered, eyes-blown wide with want.

Max lays his palm flat on the small of Charles’ back, just below where his tail is, pushing him down until his cock is flush against the pillow, and Charles whimpers at the new contact, experimentally grinding against it like—like a cat in heat. His tail is limp against his back, and Max considers curling his hand around the base and pulling on it—but he remembers what Charles said in the lift—It is very sensitive. I would prefer if you do not touch it.

Charles keeps grinding against the pillow. Max thinks to himself, Before I arrived, is this what you were doing? The thought makes him dizzy, of Charles rutting against a pillow and shoving his fingers into his hole; the image of Charles now also, has his brain whiting out, rolling his hips against a pillow, embarrassed and eclipsed by his want.

His thighs bracket the pillow, spread open, and his hole takes two fingers easily. He’s trembling and gasping and moaning, face shoved into the sheets, fingers twisted in the fabric. He’s no longer looking back at Max; it’s a shame, Max thinks, Charles has a pretty face—even prettier when he’s like this. But that’s alright. Max has a good enough view as is. Charles’ back is arched into a bow, his spine defined and his slim waist curved down, and even like this—his mouth is open. He’s drooling into the sheets, eyes closed and lashes clumped-wet, and he is fucking back against Max’s fingers, cock rubbing helplessly, needily, against the pillow below his hips with each thrust; breathy whines escape his lips constantly. It’s adorable.

“I’ve got you,” Max says, fucking him open where he’s pulsing, tightening. Charles keeps canting back, so alive, so wanting. He is so wet and so warm, and he is rolled onto his cheek, his mouth fallen open, panting, drool slipping down the side of his face, begging incoherently. His tail is swishing wildly, and it almost hits Max in the face when he inserts a third finger, coaxing him open. Max wonders if it hurts—a part of him hopes that it does.

A part of him wants to carve out a space inside Charles that belongs only to him.

Max wants to brand him, wants to dig his canines into the side of his throat. Desire obliterates every rational thought he has ever had about Charles. That is how it is; that is the way it has always been.

Desire doubles when he punches in his pinky finger, fitting half his hand in, Charles’ slick dripping down his wrist. He knows that Charles probably doesn’t need it, didn’t need to be prepped in the first place, but he wants to see how Charles reacts, and Charles reacts beautifully, like nothing Max has ever heard before, with a wounded noise and a shiver, canting his hips back. He yowls when Max curls his fingers up down toward his stomach—fingertips grinding against Charles’ prostate, curious at what Charles will do. Charles sobs and babbles messily, his cock surely throbbing against his own pillow, throwing his hips back mindlessly. Control lost—his greatest fear, greatest nightmare, and he has trusted Max with picking up the pieces.

He’s all fucked open already, and Max hasn’t even fucked him yet.

Yet, Max thinks—because he will, because Charles wants him to, because Charles asked for him to come here, and that thought has him reeling.

This is what you’ve been wanting, all this time, you have been wanting.

So he swallows his beating heart whole, pulls his fingers out of Charles, and leans down and forward to kiss away the whimper that leaves his lips.

Max rubs a few fingers over Charles’ entrance, collecting the fluid, and uses it to slick up his own cock with slow, controlled pumps—and he has been close for ages now. He tries his hardest to keep himself together. He is not like Charles—not in heat, not with impossible stamina, he has to control himself. Charles has been gazing back at him the whole time, his mouth partly open and breathily huffing out moans, eyelids fluttering, and he keeps pushing back against the air like he cannot wait even a second for Max to get inside him. And he looks pathetic like this: hole fluttering around an emptiness, back arching.

Max likes him anyway. Likes him so much he is dizzy with it.

“Easy, kitty,” Max says, gingerly placing a hand on Charles’ spine to calm him down.

He pushes Charles’ thighs further apart with his knees, and Charles reacts by lifting his ass up. Then it occurs to Max: like this, in this position, Charles is presenting to him. He swallows, brings a hand to his cock and guides it so that the tip nudges against Charles’ hole. Charles cants his hips back, impatient and noisy, but Max decides to see how much he can push him; drags his length between Charles’ round cheeks, sliding up against his fluttering entrance. It’s torturous for him too. If he wanted to, he thinks he could get off like this without a problem, merely sliding his cock between Charles’ cheeks. A sight from Max’s darkest fantasies.

“Please,” Charles begs, voice wrecked, after only a couple seconds of that, his cat ears twitching.

Max laughs. “You’re going to have to do a little better than please.”

Charles gives Max a little helpless look, like his brain’s gone so stupid he can’t even manage the right words. He swallows thickly and tries anyway. “Please fuck me,” he says, voice meek and timid. “I, I’ll make it good for you. I promise.”

“You’ll make it good for me?” Max asks, heart rocketing in his chest, drunk with power. With one hand, he pulls Charles’ cheeks apart, popping only the tip of his cock past his wet rim.

Charles blinks through his tears, lips parted, tongue slipping out to wet his mouth. “I’ll let you—I’ll let you do whatever you want.”

And, well—

What more could Max ask for?

He finally decides to give Charles what he wants.

He grips Charles’ waist for leverage, and forces his way inside Charles in one smooth movement, forces Charles to take him all the way, everything that he has. Charles gasps in shock; shudders, full-body. He clamps down on Max’s cock, impossibly tight and wet inside. His thighs slide further apart. There are fireworks under Max’s skin everywhere they’re touching. He swoops down until his chest is pressed to Charles’ back, against the ripple of muscle, maximizing contact, and Charles’ tail wiggles under Max’s belly, but it can’t hope to get itself free.

And he nips at Charles’ human ear, licks over the shell. “You’re going to let me do whatever I want with you?” Max breathes out, and Charles nods needily, moaning with each thrust. “You said you wanted me, asked for me, but you know what I think?” he grunts out with great effort, driving his cock into and out of his tight, wet heat, feeling paranoid and crazy and possessive. Animalistic. “I think you just want to be fucked open. Does it need to be me? Or would anyone do?”

“No, no, Max, what—” Charles pants out, pupils huge and sounding fucked stupid already, fevered and broken. He looks drunk. He looks panicked. He looks beautiful.

“Are you sure? I think Carlos would jump at the chance to fuck you.” And the thing is: Max doesn’t even mean it. He just—he wants to set Charles off-kilter, push him off the edge. And maybe it’s sadistic of him—but Charles gets so cute when he’s caught off-guard, and Carlos was the first person Max could think of—Charles’ teammate. At the end of the day, who wouldn’t want Charles? Any name would have done. “Too bad I got here first.”

Charles starts letting out these pitiful uh uh noises, synchronized with each of Max’s thrusts, Max’s hips slapping against Charles’ ass, changing up the angle every now and then. Charles’ tail twitches wildly.

And Max—

He knows he shouldn’t but he does, and braces one hand on the small of Charles’ back, thumb settling in the crescent of one Venus dimple, and the other wrapping around the base of Charles’ fuzzy tail and yanking.

And Charles shouts, but it isn’t a noise of pain, it’s—

He starts clenching around Max’s cock, walls pulsing and fluttering wildly around him, sobbing noisily and canting back and toward like he isn’t sure what he wants, like he is—terrified to have it, to have what he has dreamed of the ends of his moans pitching higher, mewling and—meowing, really. It takes everything Max has not to come on the spot, dizzy at the tightness. The guttural noises turn into soft whimpers, muffled into the sheets, his hands tight fists in the bedding, and his body goes still, limp, pliant, spilling into his bedding, hips rolling lazily.

Sensitive, Max thinks, the world spinning around them. He has never felt more hungry.

“How was that?” he asks, patting Charles on his hip, delighting at how Charles shudders. When he doesn’t instantly respond, Max shifts inside him, grinding.

“Max,” Charles moans, after a moment. His eyes flutter open, teary and damp. There is a cute frown, impatient and needy on his mouth, his forehead wrinkled. “I want—”

“I know,” Max says, because you are like me, because you are always wanting. I know what you need, I know what you want.

With a snort, he yanks a handful of Charles’ mousey hair, twists his fingers in his scalp, forces Charles to turn onto his cheek and look him in the eye, lips parted and shiny-wet, dumb with feeling.

Do you know? Max wants to ask. Do you know how beautiful you are? How hard you make it for me? How hard you have made it for me, in all the years I have known you, in all the years that have mattered?

Even so, I have wanted you anyway. I have wanted you all along.

Max thinks, enamored, about all the things he wants to do with Charles, about all the places he wants to take Charles, about the life he wants with him, stupidly and invincibly and inevitably—he thinks about it, not for the first time and not for the last time, having this every night, having this all of the time.

“You want it?”

Charles manages to nod his head. “Want it—please,” he asks, a shyness underwriting his voice.

“That’s right,” Max thinks, crazed, and he picks up the pace. He brings a hand under Charles’ hips to tug at his cock, not minding if Charles is overstimulated or not—he’s hardening anyway—and he drops down, drags his mouth along Charles’ neck, sucking angry bruises onto his skin, clamping down on his shoulder like he had back in Austria, in that fucking elevator, only this time, neither of them will spend the following hours under the scrutiny of cameras and watchful eyes—this time, Max makes sure the bruise will stick, will stay. He licks over the wound, prays it will never heal, and says, “You want me, only me.”

“Only you,” Charles slurs, sounding so gone, like he would say anything if Max asked him to. Sunlight from Charles’ open window cuts along his face; golden.

And Max bows down, until his face is pressed in Charles’ hair, and he takes the tip of one of Charles’ cat ears between his teeth, teasing and playful, and Charles lets out a pained little yowl—he loves it, Max knows. Loves this. Loves it.

“Max, Max—” he chants, like his brain’s been wiped blank.

Max bottoms out once more, his hips slapping wildly against Charles, and he strokes Charles’ pulsing cock through another orgasm—he’s quick and easy like that, greedy, spurting into Max’s hand, soiling the bedding, and Max pulls out—knows it’ll be unsatisfying for Charles, but he makes up for it—rolls Charles onto his back, so that they’re face to face.

He grabs Charles’ thighs, throws them over his shoulders—and it is nothing like fucking a woman, Max thinks absently, at least the women he’s fucked. Charles is strong and even more muscled than he is, the weight of him heavy, but he is flexible enough to make this work, for Max to fit his cock back into his hole, Charles bent in half, his thighs by his ears, his eyes rolling to the back of his head when Max pushes in as deep as he can go. His stomach is stained with cum, and his cock is twitching back to full hardness—it’s ridiculous. Max really has to thank the fan that cast this spell on Charles—made him go into fucking—into a fucking cat heat. It’s absurd. It’s agonizing. And it’s like—like he wants to be bred, like he thinks he can be—like he wants it, Max to fill him up with his seed, wants to make something beautiful with him.

Below, Charles’ tongue rolls out from his lip, so Max dives down to swallow it, swallow the cute moan he makes, and Charles throws his arms over Max’s neck again. How many times have they done this? Max wonders. How many times have they gotten so close and not made it stick—it doesn’t matter now that they are here. Now that they are like this, closer than they have ever been—but not closer than they will ever be—Max will make sure, more than he has made anything else in his life sure—that this will not be the last time, that he won’t ever fuck this up again.

“I will,” Max pants against Charles’ slick mouth, a facsimile of a kiss, “I’ll fuck you like this everyday, every night, till you’re full of me all the time, till you smell like me.”

Beneath Max, Charles looks barely lucid, eyes lidded and pupils huge, and Max hates himself for getting turned on by this, hates himself even more for the way he can’t stop running his mouth, saying insane things. But it can’t be so bad, he thinks, not when Charles is reacting like this. If Max is a freak, so is Charles. It's a perfect fit, they’re a perfect fit, Max thinks, stupidly, dizzily, romantically.

“I’ll get you a real collar too, like a real kitty,” Max mutters, biting at Charles’ upper lip. “I’ll have you on your knees when you aren’t on your belly, use you whenever I want.”

“Please,” Charles cries out, chants stupidly, nails digging down Max’s back, mouth loose, words unintelligible, in a different language, or maybe not in a language at all. It doesn’t matter. He’s so warm and tight around Max’s cock. Max wants to do this all day, wants to do this all week. He wants to have him forever.

“You want that?” Max asks. He’s been close all this time, but now—the pace keeps getting sloppier, but he doubts that Charles has even noticed, doubts that Charles is cognizant of anything but the fullness, the cock inside him, the feeling of being pressed down, made to take it. Max finds Charles’ cock buried between their stomachs, starts to jerk him off, the glide smooth and easy with cum, the sounds obscene. Max rubs at the head, thumb tracing along a vein, running along his leaking slit at the top. His cock, though spent from multiple orgasms, has filled up to full hardness, pulsing in Max’s grip.

“I want—” Charles struggles, delirious and feral, “I want it.”

“Good,” Max says. And for good measure, “Good kitty.”

Charles’ ears wiggle at the praise. His lips are swollen and pink from all the kissing. Max wants to kiss him again, so he does. His mouth is slick, loose, and he isn’t doing a good job at kissing back, but Max is far past the point of caring—he doubts he’s doing an exceptional job either. He rolls his hips forward, biting at Charles’ lower lip, pistoning his cock inside Charles, using Charles like a fuck toy, because—isn’t that what he wants? To be used and to have someone take care of you—it’s all one and the same. Giving up your autonomy. The one thing Charles fears more than anything; the one thing he wants more than anything.

The thought of it has Max burying his cock as deep as can go inside Charles’ heat, bottoming out until he’s spilling hot white, kissing Charles stupid and jerking him off until he’s coming undone as well. He haphazardly finds Charles’ hand, thrown above his head, and laces their fingers together. He doesn’t pull out. He rocks his hips into him languidly, makes sure Charles memorizes the feeling, over and over again until the weight of him, the shape of him, must be committed to memory.

Once the exhaustion starts to set in, Max allows himself to relax, lets his body go still, and wipes his hands off on the sheets—all damp with sweat and slick and cum, but he keeps kissing Charles. He can barely feel his face, rubbed raw with Charles’ facial hair, can barely feel anything but a pleasurable buzz rolling throughout his entire body. Charles’ kisses are worth it.

“Max,” Charles says after a lifetime of kissing. He wiggles his hips.

A jolt of oversensitivity shoots to Max’s cock, still lodged inside Charles, but completely soft.

Max swallows, props himself up on his elbows, hovering above Charles. “That wasn’t enough?”

Charles pulls his lips between his teeth, a blush on his cheeks, pupils almond-shaped, catlike, as they meet Max’s eyes. “Not even close,” he responds. He tilts his head to the side, hair haloed around his head—like an angel. Max almost laughs—he is anything but pure. “Can you handle it?”

He pushes up against Max’s hips: a clear request for another round. A challenge.

Of course, Max thinks, with picture-perfect clarity. This wouldn’t go any other way, with us.

“If not, I can call Carlos, and—”

Furiously, Max swoops down and captures Charles’ lips in a kiss—he doesn’t need to hear the rest of it. Charles sighs happily into his mouth, like a cat that got the cream.

Max thinks about all the things he wanted to do to Charles, all the things that came up in his mind.

He’s going to take care of Charles, help him through this heat, no matter what it takes.

It took them more than a decade to figure it out, but they got it done; from here on out, they have all the time in the world.

Hours later Max stirs awake. He resists it, wanting to stay in dream, the ease of it, but he feels a light tickle on his palms, so his eyes flutter open. He fell asleep after Charles, who had passed out after his tenth orgasm—Max kept count, incredulous as the number rose higher and higher, no signs of stopping. They took many breaks, but still. Charles’ cat-in-heat stamina was no short of inhuman. He wanted to sneak a shower in before he slept, but Charles had his tail curled around his stomach, and Max, tender with affection, didn’t want to disturb his sleep—he looked so peaceful, so relaxed, letting out cute little snuffles, purring and nuzzling his head against Max’s neck, clearly so exhausted—so Max simply threw an arm over Charles’ side, and pulled him into his chest. He was exhausted too.

It is dusk, Max registers, and there is just enough light seeping through the windows that Charles’ whole face is illuminated. Charles, who smells like a dream, although neither of them showered; Charles, who is playing with his hands, tracing the lines on either of his palms, like he is reading his future; Charles, who has the sheets pulled over his hip, looking like he was pulled straight out of the Louvre; Charles, who—

Max blinks, amazed. “They’re gone,” he whispers, still not sure if this is a dream or not.

They are both still on their sides, face-to-face, like they had been when they fell asleep. Charles’ eyes flick up, from Max’s hands to his face, looking caught. Hesitantly, he releases Max’s hands, settling his own in the space between their bodies.

“They are,” Charles says, face blank. Max’s eyes drift up to his head—looking to his ears to get a better read of him, of his emotions—only to remember that, of course, they are gone. There goes that shortcut. “When I woke up, they were gone.”

And he doesn’t—

Doesn’t look happy, really. If anything, he looks—uncertain.

It’s a gamble, really. Before Monaco, Charles was always a mystery, always impossible to read, no matter how expressive his face is. That’s why it took them so long to get here.

But Max knows him. Better than he thought. No more second guessing.

“Hey,” he says, taking the gamble, accepting the gambit. Leap of faith. It’s worked for him, so far. It’s worked for him, all his life—that’s how you get anywhere, in this sport. By taking risks, by going with your gut, by listening to your heart. He cups the side of Charles’ face—he isn’t burning hot like before. A normal temperature. Normal again. But the last thing Max wants is for things to go back to normal. And the thing is, he has to say it—he has to fight for it. You just can’t expect everyone to read your mind and know everything that’s inside of your head all the time—that’s why Max says the things he does and acts the way he does. He knows this. He knows that there are limits to human understanding, even with two people who know each other as well as he and Charles do.

“I like you,” Max says, running a hand through Charles’ hair, because at the end of the day, it all amounts to that. It is nothing more, nothing deeper. Still, it feels like so much, more than he can fit in his body. He leans forward to press a tender kiss beneath Charles’ human ear. “Cat ears or not.”

Charles’ eyes brighten and his cheeks flush. He looks happy, incandescent, but like he is trying to hide it. He scrunches his nose, eyes narrowing. “But you liked the ears a lot.”

“Maybe,” Max confesses, because there is no use in lying, not to Charles, at least, moving his hand to Charles’ hip, his fingers settling in one Venus dimple, right beside where his tail would be. “I liked the tail quite a bit too.”

It was adorable. Absurdly cute. So much so that Max embarrassed himself for weeks on end in front of the media. He’ll think about these past two months all his life.

When Charles frowns warily, Max tacks on, quietly, like a secret, even though it is just the two of them here, “But I like you more.”

Charles purses his lips, contemplating what he wants to say. “Well,” he mumbles after a shy moment, “I like you too.”

Max grins, big and wide; he cannot help it. “You should have grown cat ears sooner.”

He might be anti-magic, might think it’s all bullshit and placebo and people willing themselves to feel the way they want to feel, but if it got them here—he supposes he has magic to thank.

Charles groans and rolls his eyes. “You should have grown bigger balls to ask me out sooner.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” Max admits, his hand smoothing along Charles’ hip, his upper thigh, the swell of him, gentle motions, over and over. Charles shudders at the touch; his gaze darkens and falls to Max’s lips, and his own mouth parts. Max gets the message. Max leans forward and kisses him. He does not need to ask. He knows Charles well enough by now to know what he wants. He understands. Always, he understands. Because of that, his heart feels too big for his body, enormous with feeling when Charles deepens the kiss, crawls on top of him, pins him to the navy bedding, grabbing either side of his face. His heart twists in knots. It is a lovely feeling.

And Max—has a thought. One that he cannot keep inside. So he dodges Charles’ kisses, laughing and impossibly fond when he asks, “Still in heat?”

Charles blinks, his face tightening with mortification and feline fury. He huffs incredulously, exasperatedly, fondly, before shutting Max up with another kiss.

ZANDVOORT

“Max, if we could start with you, please, first of all, how was the summer break for you?”

Max brings the microphone to his mouth. “Yeah, it was good, just enjoyed time with the family, and yeah, just pretty relaxed. Slept a lot, which I think was important, so yeah—it was very good. I stayed in Monaco, for the most part, just played with the cats.”

Beside him, Lando snorts. “I bet you did.”

SUZUKA

deuxmoi

saw max verstappen buying kitty clipon ears and a tail plug in a sex shop in tokyo

anon pls

Likely place for him to be